It is known to print text and/or patterns by means of stamping, that is to say to deposit, by means of pressure on a sheet-like support, some colored or metalized coating from one or more strips to be stamped which are commonly referred to as metalized stamping foils. In industry, such a transfer operation is usually carried out by means of a platen-type press in which the printing supports are introduced sheet by sheet while each stamping foil is supplied continuously.
Among stamping printing machines which are known from the prior art, there are those in which the supply with stamping foil is carried out from an internal module which mainly combines the foils stored in the form of reels, and their drive system. Such a feed module may be in the form of a specific station or may be integrated in a dedicated zone of another workstation of the stamping machine.
Inside the feed module, the reels are generally mounted on a removable cassette-type support which is mounted in a sliding manner perpendicularly to the axis of the stamping machine. Therefore, the module is loaded by laterally withdrawing the support, by positioning each reel manually or by means of a lifting carriage, then by returning the support transversely into the machine.
However, such an internal feed module has the disadvantage of involving relatively long loading times. It also requires a large amount of floor space around the machine in order to allow, on the one hand, the removal of the cassette-type support and, on the other hand, the handling operations of the lifting carriage. In particular, however, the transverse movement of the cassette-type support produces a systematic creasing of the foils which are already present inside the feed module, and this is found to be particularly damaging in the end, from an economic point of view.
In order to overcome those difficulties, consideration has been given to using an external feed module, that is to say assembling the set of reels in a cabinet set up outside but near the stamping machine, and adopting a drive system which is capable of drawing and guiding each stamping foil in particular between said cabinet and said machine.
Although such an arrangement obviously allows the loading of the reels to be made easier and the problems involving creasing of foils to be overcome, it remains the case that it still requires a large amount of floor space. Furthermore, the off-center positioning of the external feed module involves a length of foil in the machine which is substantially greater than that which is necessary with an internal module. This has the effect of significantly diminishing the dynamic behavior of the foils during the stamping operation, but also of increasing their respective positioning times.